


Domesticated

by Polly_Lynn



Series: Tumblr Methadone [1]
Category: Castle
Genre: Awkward Romance, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-07 11:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6802777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In all the considerable time he spent envisioning them—he never pictured anything quite this … domestic."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In an ill-advised "tapering off" approach to writing, I've done some dumb tumblr things writing to X-hundred words. In this case, four chapters of 700 words each.

He never pictured this.

He lifts his hands high and out of the way as she sidesteps past him, and he realizes that in  fantasies without number—in all the _considerable_ time he spent envisioning them—he never pictured anything quite this … domestic.

“Castle!” She snaps her fingers under his nose. Her scowl and the clipped syllables of his name call him back from where he’s been. From a reverie on reveries to something better. She bumps his hip with hers, and somehow, from her to him, it’s a soft, fond, _comfortable_ gesture. “Make yourself useful.” She waves a hand vaguely. Somewhere up and behind him. “Be tall.”

She turns back to the cooktop. To the several things that need her attention all of a sudden, and he almost laughs at the idea. _Be tall,_ when she’s larger than life. Except she isn’t here. She isn’t like this, in her bare feet and slouchy at-home clothes. In this perfectly ordinary domestic scene starring the two of them, he _is_ useful.

“Tall,” he says, cracking his knuckles for show. Making a production of it when he creaks open the cabinet high above the fridge and plucks the platter she wants from the uppermost shelf. “Anything else while I’m up here?” He waits for her fingers to close around the rolled, bright blue edge, and tugs her toward him. He circles her waist with his free arm, closing the gap between their bodies with a single, demanding motion. “Any bugs that need squashing or cruelly unyielding jar lids for me to conquer? Is there anything at all you need?”

She shivers right into the melodramatic rumble of his lips at her ear and pitches her voice to match. “I do. I do need …” She flutters her eye lashes. Makes his heart pound and her own breath catch, but then she’s spinning away with the platter in hand. She’s laughing over her shoulder as she brings order out of the chaos on the counter. “I need the table set.”

“The table.”

It’s not a let down. Really, it’s not, but he hesitates with his hand on the silverware drawer. He turns toward the shelf of plates and glasses, at a loss for reasons he can’t quite explain. Reasons she doesn’t get.

“The _table,_ Castle.” She gestures with the tongs in her hand, snapping them for emphasis. “You know where things are.”

“The table,” he says again. He slides open the drawer this time. He grabs down plates and reaches up for a pair of napkins. “Not very manly,” he sniffs.

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

She swats his butt as he moves past her, and it falls away. The strange, out-of-place moment dissolves, and he’s back in the warm, companionable scene that’s nothing like he ever pictured. He’s part of it, with his sleeves rolled up and a tea towel tucked into his belt.

He sets the plates at right angles to each other and makes absurdly complicated tents of the linen napkins. He commandeers a flower from the arrangement that’s just starting to droop. He smiles at the memory of her running back for them. An impulse wrapped in cellophane, and he meets it with his own. He scans the crowd of bottles at the foot of the stairs waiting to be recycled. He rescues an empty champagne split from a few nights back and turns it into a vase.

“Wow!”

The exclamation makes him blush. He turns, ready to defend himself. To make excuses for sentiment and gesture and the fact that they’re cooped up like this. The fact that he can’t exactly wine and dine her.

He turns to apologize, but she’s an all-over smile as she sets the platter down. The table is an absolute picture, bright and warm and wonderful, now that she’s fitted the last piece into place.

“Top marks,” she says. “ _Very_ manly.”

She grazes his cheek with her lips. She tugs him to the table and hooks her bare toes around his ankle. She fills his plate and hers. She sips her wine and they chat about everything and nothing. It’s wonderful, even though he never pictured this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It is ok. Even though it’s late, and he hates that she got sucked back into something just when they were about to knock off for the night. Even though he hates seeing the evening they’d planned on the downhill slide to tomorrow, maybe or some other time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next 700 words in this.

“Sorry,” she says under her breath. She’s managed to catch him in a quiet-for-now stretch of the dog run around the bullpen.

“It’s ok.” He’s waving off the apology even before it makes its way out of her mouth.

It is ok. Even though it’s late, and he hates that she got sucked back into something just when they were about to knock off for the night. Even though he hates seeing the evening they’d planned on the downhill slide to _tomorrow, maybe_ or _some other time._

But it’s not exactly a surprise. It’s the job. It’s always been like this, and if he hates it a little bit more—if everything to do with her and the job and them worries him more these days—it’s not exactly workplace appropriate for him to show it. It wouldn’t be even if everyone knew. Which they don’t. So it pretty much has to be ok, whether it is or not.

“You don’t mind?”

The words snap his attention back to her. She’s smiling wide, and that throws him a little. Wounds him. It’s the job. It has to be ok, but she doesn’t have to look so _happy_ about it.

”Not a bit,“ he says anyway.

He smiles back, because what else can he do? He doesn’t feel like he’s pulling it off, but he must be. She’s giving his hand an under-the-radar squeeze. She’s thanking him in a voice that’s lower than should really be legal, and the look she’s giving him is heavy with meaning. Heavy with a lot of workplace-inappropriate things, and he’s confused. Baffled, really. She’s still talking. She’s telling him something, but there’s a weight in his palm, and it tears his gaze away from hers.

”… the main dish is easy. Quick if all the prep is taken care of. So I can do that if … _when_ I get out of here.“ She ducks her head, worrying her lip between her teeth. "You’re ok with the scut work, though?”

“Keys,” he blurts. He closes his fist. Opens it again, quick. His voice drops to something way too dramatic as his brain finally makes sense of the glint of metal in his hand. “These are … they’re your keys. They’re the keys to your place.”

“Yeah. Keys. So you can get in.” She gives him and odd look. She falters, and it’s like she’s smaller all of a sudden. “I mean, unless you’d rather … not.”

She’s not smiling any more. Definitely not smiling at the downhill slide to _tomorrow, maybe_  or _some other time._ She’s not smiling at the possibility of anything but tonight, even though their plans aren’t much. Even though there’s nothing more than another domestic scene on the agenda.  

“No,” he says quickly. His fingers tighten again. The teeth of the keys bite into his palm, and he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind at all. “I wouldn’t rather … anything else. Scut work. I don’t mind.”

"Ok.” She lights up again. As simple as that. “I’ll see you,” she says, but she’s not quite going. She’s lingering. Ducking her head and looking … shy? He dismisses the idea almost as soon as it occurs to him, but her cheeks are pink and she’s definitely something that doesn’t  sit comfortably alongside the name Kate Beckett. ”I’ll see you at home.“

She _is_ going, then. She turns her back and she’s moving away at speed. He looks down at the  keys again, half expecting to see them sitting on top of a note asking if he _like_ likes her, and he wants to give chase. He wants to kiss the pink of her cheeks and tell her he absolutely, definitely _like_ likes her.

He manages not to give chase, though. He manages not to do a victory lap or dart through the bullpen broadcasting the news that he’s in possession of the keys to Kate Beckett’s apartment and there’s a better than even chance that she _like_ likes him. He manages not to do any of that, but he can’t quite move, either. Can’t quite break the spell.

"See you,” he says to no one but himself, but it’s more than enough. “See you at home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Silly. Done. But there you have it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s jumpy all the way to her place.
> 
> Excited.
> 
> He tries to convince himself of that, and he is. He is, because an evening in, however much he’d love to wine and dine her, has lost exactly none of its charm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 700 words. There was supposed to be just one more set after this, but an epilogue wrote itself.

He’s jumpy all the way to her place.

_ Excited. _

He tries to convince himself  of that, and he is. He _is,_ because an evening in, however much he’d love to wine and dine her, has lost exactly none of its charm.

And there’s the fact of the keys currently burning a hole in his pocket. She handed them off like it was nothing and she _like_ likes him and he _like_ likes her and very shortly he’ll be puttering comfortably around her place unsupervised, and yeah, that’s … exciting isn’t the word for it.

But it’s more than that. A lingering thrill, yes, but mostly he’s jumpy. Downright paranoid on the subway, and it’s nothing like him. He scans the crowded car. For what, he has no idea. For Gates or his mother or—oh, _God_ —her father. His head sweeps from side to side like Jim Beckett might materialize, and he’s _jumpy._

It’s no better outside. Being off the train—out of the crowd—doesn’t help a bit, because now he’s closing in. It’s a block. It’s less than that. It’s her building. The outside door. The inside. It’s the nosy old lady in the creaking elevator he helps with the heavy rolling gate, even though she hates him.  Even though she gives him the stink eye every time.  

It’s her door, and it’s like he’s never heard of keys before. It’s like his hands are brand new. He drops the keys, once, twice … He loses count long before he gets the damned thing open. He loses count, and then he can’t get the key out.

He can’t remember what it is she does. How she leans and exactly the flick of her wrist. He can’t remember, and he thinks he’ll still be here, wrestling with the half open door, when she gets home. He thinks he might have to live right here on the threshold, because he can’t remember. These are someone else’s brand new hands, and he’s jumpy.

He despairs. He’s just at that point when the key pops free. Somehow it does, and he tumbles inside. The heavy door closes—steel-reinforced whatever, ringing out—and he’s inside.

It’s no better.

* * *

 

He knows where everything is. The ingredients. Of course he knows. They bought them together. They hauled them up all the stairs in bright bags from this bodega and that chi-chi-organic-everything place. They stowed it all away, tidy in her near-empty fridge, and he teased her.

He wrapped her up from behind and called her his woman, and she pretended to mind. Mostly pretended, but he likes her fierce. Loves her fierce, actually. Loves her, full stop, and now he’s standing motionless on the outskirts of her kitchen, alone. He’s standing on the outskirts of her kitchen with the keys to her place burning a hole in his pocket.

He knows where everything is. He sees the recipe propped up and waiting. He knows just what to do, but he’s standing on the outskirts of her kitchen.

Alone.

* * *

 

The buzzer sounds, and he almost hits the ceiling. The shitty knife slips from his hand and clatters to the floor. It takes a bright pile of bell pepper with it. Makes a huge dent in what little progress he’s made. Pepper and onion and the wrong knife for everything, because it was already out. Because he didn’t have to go snooping for it.  

The buzzer sounds again. His phone not long after. Or maybe it is.  Maybe it’s an eternity after, and it’s her.  Of course it’s her. His eyes travel to the slender silver hook in the shape of a ginkgo leaf. To her spare set of keys dangling. Of course it’s her.

He dashes to the buzzer. Presses the intercom button, and his thumb slips. It comes down on the wrong side, and he hears his name sliced right through by static.

“Beckett?” he whispers.

He’s sure he’s getting this wrong. He’s sure he’s getting everything wrong. But there it is. The sharp report if his name again. The crackle of more than static. Annoyance, though she’s laughing, too

_“Castle.”_  She’s laughing and annoyed and fierce. _“Let me_ up _. I’m starving!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Silly.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He holds his breath as he lets her in. He helps her off with her coat, and it’s too much, even though it’s commonplace by now. Something they’ve fallen into, private and not. He helps her with her coat, but he’s overdoing it. He’s chattering and over the top, because it’s too stupid to be momentous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be the last 700 words, but then an epilogue crept in.

He holds his breath as he lets her in. He helps her off with her coat, and it’s too much, even though it’s commonplace by now. Something they’ve fallen into, private and not. He helps her with her coat, but he’s overdoing it. He’s chattering and over the top, because it’s too stupid to be momentous.

He’s letting her into her own damned place, that’s all, and he still has her keys in his pocket. They’re still warm from his skin. Warm from the way he’s turned them over and over and over in his hand, staring dumbly around the familiar space, because it is momentous. And he _is_ stupid.

“Here.” He shovels the keys from his pocket. He thrusts them toward her in a gesture so awkward it’s almost violent. “Can’t … Don’t want to forget …” He’s holding on to her wrist for dear life. “You’ll need these,” he finishes, desperate and miserable.

“Thanks.” She gives him a strange look. Shakes him off gently enough that she must be … concerned, at best. Weirded out at worst, and as she looks past him to the meager pile on the counter, he’s sure that’s how things are shaping up. That’s how stupid he is, but she surprises him. She sidles comfortably past, spilling the keys from her palm to the hall table. “Can you … ?”

She frowns down at the scatter of peppers, and he’s on his knees in an instant. He’s sweeping them into his palm. He’s apologizing. Too much, but she’s taking it all in stride. She’s silent as she navigates the sink handle with her elbow and dries her hands briskly on a tea towel. She’s looking at him in a careful, sidelong way, and it’s usually him on the other end of that bit of stage business.

“Did you …” She surveys the line up of ingredients. The recipe propped up in plain sight. She pivots toward him in a mind-made-up sort of way. “Castle, did you … have trouble finding things?”

That’s a little less gentle. A little more annoyed and fierce and usual. It jerks a kind of confession from him. Unexpected on both sides.

“I didn’t look,” he says, and there’s relief in it. Stupidity uncoiled enough that he can laugh at it. Eventually. When his heart stops hammering and his stomach stops swimming down and up and sown again, he might actually laugh. In the mean time, he blurts. He confesses. “I wanted to look. At everything. I’m nosy, Beckett.” He scowls at her. A warning that he’s not half done, but her lips are pressed together and her hands are raised. A sweeping motion that says the floor is all his for the moment. “You gave me your _keys.”_ He twists at the waist on the outskirts of her kitchen. His gaze sweeps from floor to ceiling like place is positively endless. All the air goes out of him. The crackling, nervous energy just drains away. “But I didn’t look.”

“You didn’t look.” She nods, and the look on her face is absolutely neutral. “Medicine cabinet?”

She drops the towel and takes a step toward him. He shakes his head, his mouth suddenly dry.

“Night table?”

Another step and it takes everything in him to stand his ground. He shakes his head again, and she’s on him.

“Underwear drawer?”

That’s right in his ear. It’s low and laced all through with a wicked little tease that makes him shiver. Makes him burn, because he’s so, _so_ stupid.

“No,” he manages to grit out. “Damnit.”

She laughs outright, then. She raises up on her toes. She reaches past him to the slender silver hook in the shape of a ginkgo leaf. She comes down with the spare set of keys. Cool metal that bites into his palms as she closes his hand tight around them.

“I gave you my keys …” She pauses. Draws it out for dramatic effect and punctuates it with a kiss, fierce and annoyed. “Because I want you here, ok?”

“Ok,” he says.

He slips the keys into his pocket and the weight is familiar. They fall into their comfortable rhythm and it’s all familiar, even though he never pictured this.


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She doesn’t like not knowing things. She hates it, in fact, as she’s told him on more than one occasion, because he’s inclined to tease and hold out and surprise, and there really is a part of her that just hates being unsettled. Caught out by anything too raw. Fear. Delight. Tenderness. Surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue that wasn't meant to be.

She doesn’t like not knowing things.

She hates it, in fact, as she’s told him on more than one occasion, because he’s inclined to _tease_ and _hold out_ and _surprise,_ and there really is a part of her that just hates being unsettled. Caught out by anything too raw. Fear. Delight. Tenderness. Surprise.

She’s absolutely not a fan of not knowing, except for this. When it’s later than late, and she can barely make a fist around her keys. When the lock sticks and she might just fall asleep leaning into the door, it’s not knowing that keeps her upright. The pleasure of it, or maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s the bedrock beneath. Absolutely knowing he _is_ here, one way or another. He’s on the other side of the door, and the _somehow_ of it flutters pleasantly in her belly.

The door pops open, finally. She stumbles into darkness. No lamps burning at the periphery, and that’s one mystery solved. He’s not a dead-weight heap on the couch, head tipped back and mouth hanging open. Not jerking upright as the hinges creak. He’s not there in low light, insisting he was waiting up. Insisting he wasn’t.

She reaches into the closet and meets resistance. Something heavy and off-kilter with the neatly aligned shoulders of things that are hers. She steps hard on the swell of excitement, though. It doesn’t mean anything. Some of his things live here now. Artifacts of the push-and-pull of New York in the fall.

It doesn’t mean anything, but it doesn’t _not_ mean anything, either, and she won’t cheat, flipping the lights on for a closer look. She won’t spoil the surprise, and anyway, he’s getting better at hiding the evidence. Bending his habits to her space. There wouldn’t be much to see, even if she did cheat.

She steps out of her shoes. The force of the floor rising to meet her heels reminds her that she’s tired. So tired that gravity tugs her in a straight line toward the bedroom, but that’s cheating, too. Leaving a mystery unsolved, and anyway, her stomach grumbles in a half-hearted way. She’ll be up in an hour if she doesn’t put _something_ in it.

She makes her way to the fridge. She gives herself a few breaths to wonder—to revel in not knowing—then yanks the door open. She frowns. It’s a half-familiar scene. No note. No artful arrangement of containers with arrows pointing every which way and instructions in iambic pentameter. This isn’t _somehow_ tonight.

She cracks open a lid, her mouth watering as scent rises up. Garlic and mustard and rosemary. She snags a wedge of potato and pops it in her mouth, not caring that it’s cold. She peers in at corners, grabbing this and that until it’s enough. More than enough, because there’s one more mystery.

She sheds her clothes as she goes. Pulls her socks off, hopping and crashing into the wall. She tugs her shirt over her head, her fingers too tired for the last few buttons. She shoulders through the bedroom door, pants sliding from her hips right on the threshold.

He’s there. It’s the only _somehow_ left, and still, her breath catches. Still, her heart stops and starts again. She hates it a little. She takes it out on him, letting her weight sink suddenly to the bed.

“Hey,” He startles awake, and she’s glad he can’t see her mean little smile in the dark. “It’s you.”

“It’s me,” she agrees, shaking off the straps of her bra. She draws one knee up, then the other to slide her panties down her legs. “It’s you.”

“I … _me,”_ he gasps as she burrows her way beneath the covers. “Mmm. Ok,” he mutters. It’s after-the-fact agreement. She’s already made short work of his shirt. Of everything standing in her way. “Gotta be quick, though.”

“Quick?” Her spine jerks upright. The blankets stream from her shoulders.

“Quick,” he echoes, pulling her down to the flash of grin beneath her. “Beckett’ll be home sometime.” He rolls her beneath him. A sly move he shouldn’t be able to get away with. “She doesn’t like surprises.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for tolerating me through drawn-out writing break up

**Author's Note:**

> Dumb, coming and going.


End file.
